Articles by Katherine Noyes

Dropbox last week announced a Pro cloud-storage overhaul that includes new features and lower pricing Improved security and better sharing controls are the focus of the new features, while a simplified pricing plan offers all Dropbox Pro users a full terabyte of storage for US$9.99 per month. Previously, multiple pricing options were available: 100...

Samsung and LG both announced brand-new smartwatches on Wednesday in the run-up to next week's IFA 2014 consumer electronics trade show in Berlin. Featuring a sleek, curved Super AMOLED display along with 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, the Samsung Gear S (pictured above) runs Tizen and allows users to make and receive phone calls. Customizab...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed into law a bill requiring that anti-theft measures be incorporated into all smartphones sold within California. The measure applies to phones manufactured after July 1, 2015 Though it doesn't specify the particular technologies used to enable that capability -- both hardware and software solutions are possibilities...

An update to the software that runs Glass gives users of Google's wearable computing device more control over their interactions with contacts The latest version of the software -- also known as version XE20.1 -- adds the flexibility to choose how to reach out to a contact after selecting the person from the contacts list.

China is developing a homegrown operating system that could be ready as soon as October as part of an effort to wean itself from Western-made software, according to a Sunday report from the Xinhua government news agency Following hard on the heels of China's announcement last month that it had launched an investigation of Microsoft under the countr...

Netflix on Tuesday announced that it has signed an interconnection agreement with Time Warner Cable, marking the fourth such deal the content provider has signed with a major Internet service provider Netflix in recent months has signed similar agreements with Comcast, Verizon and AT&T....

Google is working on a plan to allow kids under 13 to have their own personal accounts on services such as YouTube and Gmail, according to reports Under the new system, parents will be able to set up accounts for their children, control their use of those accounts, and regulate the information collected about them, according to The Wall Street Jour...

Facebook has begun labeling some of the satirical news articles that appear in users' news feeds with a tag designed to prevent readers from mistaking the content for genuine news Originally discovered by Ars Technica, the social network's "[Satire]" tag is apparently part of an experiment that's been under way for a month or so....

Aloft Hotels this week announced the launch of a new, robotic "butler" at the company's Cupertino, Calif., location. Dubbed "A.L.O.," the new botlr, or robotic butler, is designed to help the hotel's human staff by delivering amenities to guest rooms A.L.O. comes professionally "dressed" in a custom shrink-wrapped, vinyl-collared uniform, complete...

Samsung on Wednesday unveiled its long-awaited Galaxy Alpha smartphone featuring a metal frame and a 4.7-inch HD Super AMOLED display. "We have taken a new approach to smartphone design with the Galaxy Alpha, focusing on sophisticated design techniques and compact construction, while building upon the Galaxy experience," Samsung spokesperson Ashle...

The inventors of Apple's Siri personal assistant have launched an independent effort that could make their first offspring look kind of dumb Billed by its creators as "the global brain," Viv aims to radically simplify the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything....

Acer America on Monday rolled out a new Chromebook contender featuring a 13.3-inch display and an Nvidia Tegra K1 mobile processor With a battery life of up to 13 hours, along with a light, fanless design, the Acer Chromebook 13 is available with two display options: a full HD display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, 2 GB of memory and a 16-GB solid st...

Atmospheric pollution may not exactly be among mankind's proudest achievements, but it's certainly an incontrovertible sign that we are here. Could something similar help us find civilizations on other planets? That's the premise behind one of several recently announced new approaches to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence....

Google on Wednesday announced that it has begun factoring websites' use of HTTPS into its search rankings, resulting in more favorable results for those that use the security-minded protocol "Over the past few months we've been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algori...

The Wikimedia Foundation on Wednesday released its first-ever transparency report -- and along with it a protest against Europe's "right to be forgotten" law. Wikimedia is the nonprofit owner of Wikipedia and other sites "Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation began receiving notices that certain links to Wikipedia content would no longer appear in se...

The U.S. Department of Transportation is drafting a notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM, that could restrict consumers' ability to talk on their cellphones during airplane flights Following last year's Federal Communications Commissionproposal to overturn decades-old rules barring in-flight cellphone use, the DoT earlier this year issued an invi...

Online reviews are a modern-day fact of life for any company operating in the hospitality industry, but an Internet maelstrom erupted on Monday when one hotel's surprising response to that reality was brought to light Namely, the Union Street Guest House in upstate New York threatened to charge those who booked wedding parties at the venue US$500 f...

Sony's PlayStation Now on Thursday entered open beta, making it available for the first time to all PlayStation 4 owners in the U.S. and Canada. The game-streaming service had been in a private beta period since January. PS4 users now can choose from a library of more than 100 titles for rental periods from four hours to 90 days. Pricing ranges fr...

BlackBerry on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Secusmart, a developer of high-security voice and data encryption and anti-eavesdropping technologies Mobile devices increasingly are being used for more critical tasks and to store more critical information, noted John Chen, BlackBerry's executive chairman and CEO.

Sprint will begin selling Google Apps for Business services to enterprise customers starting next month through a new partnership announced Wednesday Included in Sprint's mobile-focused offering will be a full array of deployment and support services, along with value-added services such as single sign-on. Sprint reportedly will offer the ability t...